


Her Red Lips (Swollen By Too Many Kisses)

by 13letters



Series: The Seasons That Change; the Kisses Home In Your Hips [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up, Happy Ending, Romance, Sexual Situations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 06:18:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4424657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/13letters/pseuds/13letters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's eleven, and at fifteen, Gendry's stupid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Her Red Lips (Swollen By Too Many Kisses)

She's eleven, and at fifteen, Gendry's stupid.

"If you really like her," he says, shrugging off his frown as he drums his fingers on the dash.

"I'm going to be late," she huffs, but he isn't listening to her, and neither is Theon, so she tugs at her ballet tights and frowns out the window.

Carpooling, Father suggested, because he didn't really trust Robb to drive yet, not when he nearly swerved off the road to avoid running over a leaf.

But he trusted Theon, oh, God, he trusted Theon. His father owned a company not unlike Dad's and Mr. Baratheons, but instead of being the competition's spy like anyone might have thought, Theon was seriously following Ned Stark's footsteps in having the eye for business and the mind for potentially being a CEO that ran a clean corporate trope like his dad didn't.

Theon, not Robb, he had something Robb lacked, maybe, but it wasn't her brother's fault he'd rather be a lawyer.

Or Prince Charming at Disney World.

He wanted to do the Disney World study/acting program.

Loser.

Theon just wanted to date his boss's daughter, though Ned trusted him because he was responsible and full of integrity and _exuberating the promise I like to see in our future generations, Cat._

"It's not that I _like_ her," he explains tactfully, like he wasn't about to lose all the faith the old man had for him. They're waiting in a line at McDonald's, and Theon was supposed to be taking her straight to her ballet lessons after school, not gossiping with Gendry about perfect Sansa. "It's just that I think I do?"

Gendry looks to the rear view mirror and sees Arya scowl at her hands like she isn't paying attention, and he's more than just a bit relieved. Theon was a bloke with no censors. "'Cept you can't date one of the Stark girls," he laughs, "Mr. Stark'll have your head."

"Which?" Theon grins, and Gendry snorts, watches Arya frown in confusion at Theon. "Not like I can date one of the Stark boys, though Jon is very pretty, isn't he?"

"Yeah, but Robb has to be better looking. It's what all the girls in chemistry say. And, y'know," he says casually, shamelessly self-promoting with an indignant sniff, "girls like blue eyes."

"Sansa has blue eyes," Theon murmurs, and they're one car closer to the order window, one sentence further in the love story of Theon's life because Gendry couldn't change the topic. "She's pretty. More than pretty. Smart, too."

She slumps down into her seat and kicks the back of his. "Can you at least get me fries and shut it about Sansa?"

"Hey, you think Sansa'd go out with me, shorty? And -- do you want chicken nuggies?"

"Theon," she sighs. Really now, she's eleven. No chicken nuggets. "..Yes. And it depends on what you'd do, I think, on your date," she nods, surprising herself at how much she _totally_ knows about romance and the dating world. She knew her sister thought there was something attractive in Theon, though, her diary said so much.

Gendry looks to Theon and briefly wonders if he's pausing because he won't say what he's thinking, but no. "Make out with her," he shrugs, "second base?"

And Gendry sighs, tipping his head back to gesture at Arya. "Could you not talk like that in front of her?"

But it's she who sighs, and she's really going to be late for practice. "I have my brothers and Theon," but not him, not when he's so stupid and keeps Jon from playing rugby with her, "I've fucking heard it all."

Theon's cackling (" _that's my girl!_ " because he thinks he's trained her so well) even as the automated voice asks what he wants to order, and Gendry's staring at her red-faced and shocked, resigning to tell Theon again how he can't date one of the Stark girls, because who'd let him? Not Jon, not Robb, not Eddard Stark. He's supposed to prove boys and girls could just be friends anyways when her father was the key to a successful career, not try to get a date with anything that moved.

Arya just rolled her eyes at the both of them, munching on her large fry, because Gendry's stupid.

\- -- - -- -

When she's thirteen, she thinks he's wrong.

So, _so_ wrong, but then maybe he really isn't, but thinking about that makes her heart hurt.

Boys and girls could just be friends, sure. Of course. They totally could. Nothing else had to happen. Friendship. Friendship. Being friends. Best friends. Friends didn't crush on their older, unfairly attractive friends without even knowing when or how the infatuation started. How did the evolution change from Jon's friend to her friend to oh, sweet Lord, God was good when He made Gendry.

And Gendry was getting better at maths, mmhmmm. And while maths was always her best subject where she passed every test, and though she hated subjecting herself to the pathetic level of _Mean Girls_ , she might have asked Gendry for help.

"Just like old times, isn't it?" His smile was beautiful, and his eyes were bright, and yes, old times, about one year ago when he was just some stupid boy that hadn't yet taken over her life.

He's wearing that stupid old shirt she loves.

"We need Taylor Swift," she jokes, unable to even feel stupid for saying as much to him while she'd be embarrassed if it were anyone else. But then her brain's reminding her that she's too young for him, he's just being nice to her, he's just Jon's stupid friend, and her mouth's saying words before she could help it. "You could ask me for advice, you know."

"..What?"

Oh. "Well," she starts, wanting his attention but not really factoring how awkward it'd be when he's staring at her and she doesn't know what she was trying to say. "About.. uh. Dating and things," she nods. But no, no, that wasn't what she intended, and she finishes the long division of a decimal she wasn't supposed to know how to do while he gives her that amused smile, confused furrow of his brows.

"You want me to ask you for dating advice?" His voice is gentle, not teasing, and she perks up, opening a can of Coca Cola with her idea.

"I never see you out on any dates or talking about girls," she starts. This is casual, and she's _so_ got this, and the line of forced nonchalance and a casual shrug is something long-practiced when it comes to talking to Gendry. "You need help."

"And you could help me?"

"I could."

"Wait," he says, looking to the kitchen's backdoor where he can hear Theon driving up with Sansa. "What do you know about dating boys?"

She pauses, because she doesn't know anything about dating boys aside from what she can hear Sansa and Jeyne whispering about, but Gendry's memorizing it now, the wrinkle in her nose, the slight shift of her jaw grazing her teeth together as she thinks of a lie. "A lot. More than you might know about dating girls."

He chuckles loudly, and she briefly thinks she doesn't want to know who he's dated. "Then give me your advice, I could use it."

His grin falters, however, when he looks to the homework sheet to check the problem he was helping her with just to see every equation worked out perfectly, and she shrugs when he stares at her. "You'll have to give me more information on the girls you like."

He bites his lip (he really shouldn't when it makes him look like that), and _shit_ , she thinks, she can only pretend so much. She can't help him date someone else when she thinks he's rad and is still falling into like with him and off the fine line between flirting and devastation.

"There isn't a girl," he finally tells her, refusing to answer anymore of her questions, the stubborn prat.

She doesn't know if she's relieved or disappointed, though, still doesn't even after he told her she was clever and left before dinner.

"Arya?" Sansa asks, lingering in her doorway where she'd normally walk by without a glance.

"Yeah?"

And her sister looks weird, she thinks, definitely worried but dazed, too. Hesitant. "Can I ask you something?"

"What's wrong?" She sits up on her bed when Sansa gently sits on the edge of it, and she grins beautifully and freely for an instant like she's caught in a memory before remembering why she's here in her older sisterliness.

"You don't, uh," and Sansa never tripped over her words, but she couldn't blame her when she was trying to sound cautious and hopeful and elated and wary all at once, "you don't.. like, _like_ Theon, do you?"

Arya choked.

\- -- - -- -

She's fourteen when Gendry's nineteen and a few months into those classes he's taking locally.

Jon's been off to some sort of military training camp every couple weeks, Robb's been busy with classes again because Mum told him he should start attending more of them instead of worrying after his brother since there isn't much he can do (she was crying), but there was Gendry still. He was always here, just not when he wasn't.

He was helping Bran with something upstairs when he'd started coughing up blood for the first time in months, and he carried her brother down the steps to Ned's waiting car. And it was cold Chinese food in the waiting room this time as the family sat frozen, worried, not eating, Sansa's hand to Arya's hair.

But she was left alone at some point, the plastic blue cushion was cold beneath her head where there should have been Sansa's lap, and "Hey," Gendry whispered from the seat beside her. "Your mum took Sansa to get some things from your house for Bran, they'll be back soon."

"How is he?" she tried to ask, but a frog was caught in her throat, and she could see the blood staining Bran's chin behind her burning eyelids.

"Nurse said he's doing better, he's been sleeping a lot," he answered. "His body seems calmer than it was."

And it was okay, Gendry told her, kissing the top of her head. Bran was okay, and she was okay, and nothing was wrong, and he brushed back her hair from her eyes, told her to go back to sleep.

Or maybe she imagined all that.

\- -- - -- -

"Why don't I get to sneak into bars?" Bran asks good-naturedly.

She shushes him because mum and dad are right there, and ever since his twenty-first birthday, she'd kept asking Gendry to take her back to the dive he worked in. Tonight was just the first night he agreed since the first time he took her a few weeks ago, only she didn't ask him tonight, he texted her that she could come in.

He just couldn't drive, and when she arrives to the bar one metro ride and walk there after ensuring her red lipstick, black skinny jeans, converse, and Guns'N'Roses t-shirt he bought her makes her look as perfect and smoking as possible, she knows why.

She's never really seen anyone drunk before, but he isn't drunk at first -- just drinking.

He looks like he's trying to shove some slut with big tits away and scream at the television and down a shot all at once, and because she's just sixteen, she doesn't really know what to do. "Gendry?"

"Arya," he slurs happily, his bloodshot eyes a brighter blue. "You --" He never finishes his thought, he's asking the bartender to pour him another. And then another, and she knew he and Jon and Robb would drink beer and watch their games on the telly, but this was different. He was properly drunk as far as she could tell, and she didn't know why.

"Buy me a drink," she tells him, setting her purse on the counter next to his empty glasses.

His eyes are starting to glaze over, sharp to unfocus, and he watches her sit next to him cautiously, his head tilting to the side to look at her straight, and she was just some girl in a bar. He was just some guy in a bar. He says something she doesn't catch to the bartender she recognized from weeks and weeks ago, and when he passes him the drink and he passes it to her, she sees his knuckles are white in his grip, and her worry makes the bubbly, fruity lightness of her weak drink taste bitter.

"Gendry?" she tries again, but he's staring back to the telly.

"Those fuckers!" he shouts at Chelsea on the screen, because footie sucks, and a group at a table in the corner cheers.

"Gendry?" she repeats more forcefully, her fingers tense as she reaches out to his arm.

The lines in his face soften, the fierce lines she recognizes too late as anger and hatred disappearing with the hand that's not holding his whiskey reaching for hers. "So little," he slurs, broken and drunk and rough, "your hands."

He's almost looking at her in wonder, she can smell the reek of liquor on his breath inches away from hers, and why? Why was he drinking? Why was he so careless with it? He wasn't laughing and loud and carelessly fun like movies and books and Robb when he drank too much Sangria at Mum's parties, he was angry.

And it almost scared her as she set her pink drink down and wondered why he'd wanted her to be here. "We should go home," she says quietly, frowning as he says something she can't catch, knocks over an empty glass in front of him. "Let me help get you home, uh. Where's your wallet to pay for the drinks?"

"Fuckin' drunks," he curses instead, and irony is everywhere.

"Gendry? Come on," she whispers, because the barkeep is on the other side unable to tell her if Gendry has a tab or not, and -- it doesn't matter.

She doesn't know how he's moving, but he is, nearly crashing off his stool as he sways towards the exit with the neon signs flashing at them before they're coated in the darkness outside. Her arm strains to keep him walking upright and straight, and while he mumbles to himself, nearly walks them into a streetlight, she's seeing the world just a bit differently.

The streets are darker; the lights don't seem to shine in this part of the city, and while she knows that she's always safe with Gendry, he's tripped over the sidewalk and fallen just to stand after her begging him to keep moving, because there are people she doesn't know on the streets, and she's feeling very much sixteen.

But that seems to sober him in a small way, and though he's still leaning heavily on her for support, he seems to know where he's walking while he stumbles at least, his arm securely holding her tight against him protectively.

"Why were you drinking?"

"Next," he gruffs out. She can smell the alcohol on his breath and see him wince, breathe shallowly, like something's hurting him.

"Why'd you call me, then?" she frowns, looking to the name of the street at a sign they approach at a crossroads.

"Text," and it's the first time he might have really smiled all night, the idiot. His arm was warm around her back.

"Why'd you text me, then?"

She's starting to feel stupid for making such an effort to dress up, she can taste her red lipstick rubbing off on her teeth, and she almost regrets it until he says it, as he walks them to a small, nice yet rough looking house streets and streets away from that bar, from her home.

"You help," is all he says, before he doubles over on the front steps like he's going to vomit.

"Just," she starts, her arms flailing at her sides in not knowing what to do. He's pointing to the doormat, and yes, yes, key, unlocked door, what if he had alcohol poisoning? "I'll make coffee!" she shouts, because that sobered people up, didn't it? She's found her way to the kitchen in a hurry, ignoring the mess of the place she associates as nothing but Gendry, and she hears him groan as the screen slams. "You can tell me, whatever it is, y'know."

She doesn't think he will, the feet of the chair he pulls out scratch against the tiled kitchen floor in protest, his forehead hits the table as he groans, and the coffee can't brew fast enough. "Family's lucky," he mumbles, and she frowns at him in confusion, takes that as his intoxication speaking. "Arya?"

Enough coffee's brewed in the pot to fill one cup, and she quickly passes it to him only to see the misery and the sadness in his eyes, the lost train of thought that doesn't tell her whatever he was going to.

They sit at the table (she never learns why), him drinking the coffee she pours him again and again until he throws up and the coffee comes out of his nose.

"I'm so stupid," he groans, sweaty and head-ached and reeking of alcohol and vomit.

"No," she starts, though she's told him so nearly everyday for the last six years, though everything he's done makes him all the more imperfectly human and lovely in her eyes.

His eyes shouldn't be so blue when he's hungover.

"You have a curfew," he seems to realize, looking to the clock on the microwave that reads 3:21 AM, the only other light in the dark kitchen the open fridge since he sullenly asked her to flip the lightswitch off two hours ago. Too bright.

"It doesn't matter," she tells him, smiling just a bit when he reaches for her arm instead of the top of his chair.

"Thank you," he tells her in bloodshot muttering, but something in the way he says it frees just a bit more of her heart to him, and he doesn't have to tell her why he was drowning his life in that bar tonight, but she'll figure it out soon (since this is the first of a long list of nights she sneaks out to see him). "I can drive you home in a couple hours, explain to Mr. Stark that you.."

She frowns when he trails off looking confused, because he didn't know how to tell her dad that he asked her to come to a bar. "..Or," she finishes loudly, "you can drive me home and I can climb through my window."

"Is that how you got out?"

"There's a drain pipe," and her heart catches as he laughs happily.

And promptly passes out, his forehead slamming on the table.

\- -- - -- -

She's still sixteen when he's still twenty-one, and her arms cross over her chest as she walks down the street away from her house.

"You weren't supposed to follow me."

"Make sure no one sees you leave next time," he calls, sounding closer than when he last spoke. "Why're you upset?"

"You know why," she gruffs, the wind whipping her dress around her knees, her feet cold in the thin flats that really aren't serviceable for walking.

"I do," he says, because he does, but there's a lot. "Is it Jon? Sansa? Bran? Theon?" A long list of those who've aggravated her tonight, and she's walking faster, so he continues. "It can't be Jon, I know you're still upset at him for leaving, but the military's only gettin' him for a couple months. And it can't be Sansa, you've known how she gets. It's why you tried to convince me she was adopted."

She smiles despite herself, stopping at a busy crosswalk and turning away from him when he inevitably caught up, because of course he remembered that from when she was just a kid. "She is," but she says it fondly.

When she tells people Theon's adopted, it's full of disgusted teasing and his mocking laugh and her wondering why he's always at their house. Fucking Christ.

"And it's not Bran, he's been doing real good lately, your mum says." They're still waiting for the light to turn red; he shrugs out of his jacket (letterman jacket, loser, he wrestled during highschool) and sets it around her shoulders. "It's.. I can't think of why it wouldn't be Theon. It's always Theon."

"Gendry?" She finally looks to him, and all of her willpower is gone to trying not to inhale the musky, warm smell of his jacket that's so.. _perfect_ , and God, she's taking too much pleasure from it when she was supposed to be mad.

He smiles at her, his hair all tousled and dark and moving in the cold wind that blows past them, and he moves to stand in front of her, blocking the chill from reaching her as she shoves her arms through the holes of his jacket. "Arya?"

She's silent for quite the long moment (the light's still red), but when her grey eyes glint up to him, she can see him shivering in the cold. "Was Theon high the other day?"

He blanches, chokes, stares at her wide-eyed like she isn't supposed to know anything about anything, and he _almost_ considers lying. "Yeah, he was," he says slowly, brows furrowing down at her.

"On what?"

"Why are you so interested?"

"On what."

"Weed, I think?" He's quiet, looking around for cops, to the traffic light that's still red, and he nods his head back towards the direction to her house.

"You don't know?" she frowns, wavering back in memory of the aggravation that had her leaving the house before she starts for it again.

"I don't do drugs, Arya."

"But you smoke."

"Smokes!" he exclaims, and pfft, he's so posh. "Cigarettes! Not drugs. And you'd better stop nicking them from me before you get addicted."

She only rolled her eyes at his warning, turning her face away from him and into the collar of his jacket she wore. Electric. And warm. And so much like _Gendry_ that if he knew she'd probably get off on it, he wouldn't have lent her his coat. "I never see you actually smoke them, though," she mumbles for something to say, her cheeks starting to burn.

"I try not to around you."

"To be a good influence?"

"So you'll think I'm good," he laughs, nudging her arm, and she smiles automatically because that's expected, but he's so clueless, it's causing her physical pain. "Why'd you bail, anyways?"

"Just.. reasons."

She sighs, but he knows her glower well enough, so he doesn't push her. When their silent walking finally leads them back to the long driveway of the Stark's, though, he gently tugs at her arm when she starts to turn towards it, and they keep walking. And walking.

"Y'know, I've actually never seen you dance before," he starts, and oh, how quickly her face went from a frown to a bright smile.

They walk towards the studio she's taken lessons at for the six years she's told him Sansa's adopted, and she makes sure he knows she's more into alternative, interpretative styles than classical ballet.

And dancing, she feels free, happy she wore the stupid dress her sister picked out for her so she can move about freely (as free as she can trying to not think about how much of her legs or, God forbid, her undies can be seen with different moves), and Gendry applauds when she's finished, cheers with a stupid grin on his face.

When she gets a call from Jon, he thinks it's time they head back, so they do, and she thanks him and stares dumbly after him when he turns down the road after kissing her cheek. Before she heads to her room, she hears Sansa talking to Bran.

And she wants to hate her sister right now, but she can't when it sounds like she's crying, and Bran just tells her that love is strange, that maybe she'll get it right next time, but it's okay if she goes to her prom with Joffrey anyways.

\- -- - -- -

She's seventeen, but since he's just turned twenty-two, they shouldn't be here.

"Gendry," she murmurs against his mouth, and his response isn't coherent as he holds her closer to him, tugs her closer to him, swallows her gasp with his tongue at the top of her mouth when her legs spread to straddle his lap. "Oh, God," she rasps out, something in her melting and curling inside her as his lips slide to her jaw, his stubble prickling against her skin.

"Yes?" he whispers into her neck, and she weakly slaps his arm, her fingers moving to thread through his dark hair.

"We're dating, aren't we?" Her voice is the spot of breathless it shouldn't be on the couch in the living room with any number of her family home, and because she's seventeen, because he keeps himself from doing more than kissing her when it's much more difficult to keep _her_ from doing more than kissing him, he pulls away from her, relaxes against the couch.

"Depends on if you want to go out with me," he says, the grin only she brings out in him pressing to his mouth as she kisses him. Again, and again, and he can taste the root beer she was drinking on her tongue as she spreads it over his, and _oh_ , he hears her murmur, opens his eyes to see how her dark lashes flutter against her cheeks.

It did change somehow, from friends through mutual friends to best friends to snogging on her parents' couch, the muted telly in the background, the hitch in her breaths edging on needier and needier, the press of her tits against his chest, the heat of her breath to his forehead as she laughs. "My third kiss."

"We've only kissed three times," he says, and when the white heat he feels warms the part of him that lowers his mouth from her neck to her low neckline with a bite he doesn't realize she'll have to cover, he needs to get her out of his lap. "Didn't you kiss that one bloke?"

"Who?"

"..Podrick?" He didn't want to know anything about the git or the nights he spent out with Arya.

" _Edric_ ," she corrects, and he scowls, forcefully pushing her off his legs. She scowls, too. "He wasn't my boyfriend or anything."

"You spent lots of time with him last year."

"Oh," she starts. He doesn't like it half so much as when she breathes it into his kiss, but she reaches for his hand, splays her fingers over his. "About that."

They only talked for a month, really.

She tried to date, mostly because Sansa kept bugging her about it. And because Jeyne was starting to call her a lesbian, and not the sexy kind.

At least Jon was happy about how she couldn't find any guys he thought she didn't like. Aside from, y'know, his best friend.

Not Theon. Who did kiss Sansa once or thirteen times a year ago.

It didn't work out.

Loras Tyrell was thrilled.

She bites at her lip, chewing the words. "I was told he had a crush on me, don't know why, but I thought maybe a free movie wouldn't be so bad?"

"Yeah, 'cause I never took you to see anything you wanted," he frowns. And smiles, curling his fingers when her palm wraps around them. "Why's the real reason?"

"Thought you'd maybe notice me then," she mumbles, because it was such a great plan, really, attention from another boy to get the attention of another one who only congratulated her on her date and probably went back to snogging Ros. Which he wasn't, but she asked him if he did before he could focus too much on the flake of vulnerability that comes with talking about her feelings.

"I kissed her a couple times."

"And?"

"And what? Didn't feel right, didn't work out," he shrugs, 'cause it never felt like this.

She'll let that get to her head later, much later, when she's probably squealing into her pillow like a silly girl over her first crush. Her _only_ crush. "And me?"

"You're okay enough, I guess."

She gapes at him before punching his arm. "You're a jerk. I'm a _great_ kisser."

"Just talking to you's made everything better about everything," he smiles all crooked and lopsided and stupid. "How do you think kissing you's made me feel?"

"Like you should have done it sooner," she huffs, because damn those butterflies in her tummy.

"Maybe."

"Maybe. I'm happy to, y'know. Have you here?"

It's a question it shouldn't be, slow and awkward and just a bit unsure, but his arm fits around her waist like it was made to be there, and dozens of clichés, metaphors, fucking John Green pretentious parallels run through her mind.

"It'll pass, I'm sure," he laughs, ducking his head when her dad and Rickon wander in.

"What're we kids doing?" He sounds cheerful, but busy. Always busy. Gendry looks to Arya.

"Talkin' about politics," she answers easily, shrugging with a nod to the telly when he stares at her. "News is on."

Rick doesn't look impressed, and really, Gendry needs to learn to not go red in the face each time something happens on the low down. But just a year to wait, and she'd be legal.

"Politics. If I was the leader of this country," Ned starts with a sigh.

"Good thing you're not. Your blood pressure wouldn't like it."

"Rickon."

"Uh," Gendry adds intelligently.

\- -- - -- -

It's been six months. She's been eighteen for two.

Her hands are on his hips, his palms are hot through the ratty Van Halen shirt she stole from him, and their lips have been sealed for precisely seven minutes and twenty-three seconds.

"You got the job?" she'd asked him excitedly seven minutes and twenty-nine seconds ago.

"I got the job!"

"I knew you would!" And then they were kissing.

Still kissing, in an ardored passion that's igniting the both of them in steamy passion and hot breaths, and now that he's some certified mechanic/engineering thing, he's set for life.  _Their_ life.

But he breaks the kiss when it gets too hot, when she sucks at his tongue (where did his Arya learn that?) and drifts her fingers lower on impulse where fire's starting to touch her skin, and the first words he says are, "Wanna get a bite to eat?"

She falters, all swollen lips and dilated pupils, and _oh_. "Ouch. Was I that bad?"

"Babe," he starts, really needing to not make a habit of kissing her each time her red lips curl like that, "you were dynamite. But I'm starving and need to get you fed, too."

"Mmm. You take such good care of me."

"Mind tellin' that to Jon?" His eye was still bruised from telling him he was in love with Arya.

"I'll tell any and everyone who'll listen," she swears, and she did often and loudly (especially to Cersei Lannister-Baratheon).

\- -- - --

The next year, she's nineteen. He's twenty-four.

They had sex.

She realized he wasn't as perfect as she grew up thinking he was, but that made it better somehow. Everything. He was more real. More for her.

"We've had pizza everynight this week," she said from the floor since she convinced him to put the couch to storage so they could paint the limited wallspace. Or so he could -- she doesn't live here officially, just steals his dresser space.

"It's only Tuesday," he laughs. He did a lot of that, and it went straight to her heart each time. "And I know you love being on first-name basis with the pizza delivery guy."

"Who else do we know named Hot Pie?"

"Stop it," he says off-handedly, trying to catch the cheese dribbling off his bacon and tomato and olive and pepperoni special. "I'll be green with jealousy."

"Pfft."

But somehow, with kisses that tasted like greased pizza and Pepsi and perfection, they made it from the floor to each other to his arms carrying her to his bed.

"You're sure?" And she hates how he asks, but it's so warm, and her breaths are coming harder as she nods. "We stop when you say," he reminded her like he always did.

"Have you ever..?"

"No."

"Loser," she muttered, but her eyes rolled back into her head when his mouth found her nipple.

Until it got awkward.

But firsts are always awkward, she supposed, and he was sweet the entire time the burning pressure had her eyes crying until she was crying out, and then _oh_. Oh.

And then it became routine. In the bedroom, in the shower, on the couch, against the fridge (he should have set his glass of milk down first that time).

And then a couple months later, he asked her to officially move in with him, though before she could, they were back at the hospital for Bran.

And then at the funeral of Robert Baratheon, and that's where they were now, at home on the couch where he fell asleep atop her just for her to wake up alone in the dark.

"Gendry?" she calls, groggy from sleep. Her phone flashed 3:21 AM.

She hears him muttering something from the kitchen, likely talking to himself, but there's the slight crackling of the coffee pot, the clinking of glass in the bin, and when she stands in the kitchen's entryway, she sees him throwing up.

"Gen," she sighs, moving behind him to soothingly rub circles to his back.

"Fuckin' drunks," he whispers, and irony is everywhere, and it breaks her heart just a little until he throws up again and coffee comes out of his nose.

\- -- - -- -

She turns twenty-one in a couple years, and there's another hospital scare.

It's Bran like it always is, but when most of their peace starts to feel short-lived, Theon always shows up at his room without anyone having told him which number and floor they were on.

He jokes about getting Bran stronger pills if he ever needs them, and he laughs like he always does with that smile Sansa rolls her eyes at but has to smile back to, and Theon really isn't just joking about the drugs.

He isn't.

Arya makes sure to keep Rick away from him, because he's more likely to follow in Ned's footsteps then Theon is now, so long as he quiets the wild streak no one thinks he'll outgrow, but he's wearing that shirt he found in the dryer one day he crashed on the couch in Gendry and Arya's flat, the one with the fading Van Halen album art, and pfft, git.

"I'm fine," Bran tells anyone that will listen, but no one besides his siblings has listened to him for the past twelve years.

"I know," Robb assures him since Mum's fussing at a nurse, and a little shift here, a scooch over there, the quiet buzzing of the sideguards being lowered, Robb slides into the bed next to Bran.

It's a tight fit, the machine Bran's plugged into go spastic for the thirteen seconds he's moving, but he fits comfortably with his older brother next to him like he always used to when that comfort helped him like it did when he was nine, and he sleeps comfortably without any fits for a solid seven hours.

Rickon photo-bombs them, because he's an ass, and Ned has another conversation with Gendry about his intentions (" _we've been screwing for three years, Dad_ ," Arya cuts in, but not really -- she doesn't want to be grounded even though she moved out a while ago and is only just a back-talking, sassy badass that takes nothing from no one, her parents, in her inner monologue) and future lifegoals, and Gendry almost tells her dad about the ring he has in his pocket but doesn't.

He needs the courage to even ask her when he gets to thinking about it, but he's long-past gone to alcohol for that.

"Shireen baked muffins," Rickon calls from the reclining chair by the window, "she wants to bring them."

"A dear girl," Mum says. Like that dear girl isn't shagging her youngest son.

Jon was the one to give him the sex talk, anyways, when he walked in on Rick and Shireen at fifteen and seventeen and about to -- right.

But as no one knew who talked to Jon, the siblings just assumed it was Ygritte, his girlfriend. Definitely not Mum and Dad; as far as their kids were concerned, they didn't fuck. They held hands and he kissed her forehead before he left for work every morning and they went to church every Sunday and they both recycled properly and their kids just appeared one by one every couple years.

No one knows how Theon just came to show up one day, though.

Loras was still smitten to hear Willas tell it -- he was marrying Sansa, too.

She was on the floor on his jacket with Arya, and they were looking over various bridal magazines with Sansa's hushed squealing and rolled grey eyes always finding blue with a smile, and it was okay, and bad routines could be good sometimes.

\- -- - -- -

The next night, a doctor told them Bran could return home soon.

So when supplies were needed, a boardgame of _Sorry!_ and _Monopoly_ because nothing tore their family apart like those games when they all silently agreed to not eat past midnight since Bran wasn't allowed to, it was Gendry who offered to go.

And Arya just had to go with him.

"I can't drive with your hand on my knee," he mumbles, just past the corner of Fifth before the light that flashes onto Second.

"Don't think about it," she tells him like it's obvious, like her fingers aren't inching further up his thigh.

"Arya."

"Gendry," she mocks him like she always does, "Gendry," but it's a gasp because his left hand's knuckles are white on the steering wheel, his right hand reaching out to curl between her thighs, and since the streets are already deserted, the back of the parking lot a turn away especially, he turns the truck in to park as she unbuckles her seat belt.

"We don't have anything in here," he mumbles into their kiss as she tugs him into the backseat, but it didn't matter. Tonight did.

\- -- - -- -

"Okay," she says. "Okay."

She's twenty four, he's twenty-eight, and while they've been married for a year, today was the set date. The planned date. Mum and Sansa and Dad and Robb and Jon and half the people in the world that didn't know them didn't know they eloped either.

..Except one day a few months ago, Theon was smarmier and smirkier than usual as he held Gendry's gaze for inappropriately long and said, "Yeah."

Yeah.

He might know something.

He does "freelance work" according to Robb, whatever that meant. You bet Arya looks into it.

"You can't be having second thoughts on me now," Gendry laughs, but he sounds so nervous, and he's talking to her through a closet in the basement where everyone would be getting ready if they didn't run away with a shout 'cause the bride can't be seen by the husband before the vows.

"I'm not," she reassures him, leaning against the door. She can barely breathe in her white dress in the stuffiness of the room. "People expect me to."

"Which people?" he demands, sounding gruffier.

"I'm coming out," she warns, the door creaking as she steps out to see him turned around with both his hands covering his eyes. "Y'know I never wanted to be married?"

"Nope," he says, feeling her turn him to face her. He does, and she is so beautiful. "You always wanted to marry me."

"Can't imagine why."

"Me neither. But I wanted to marry you for your legs."

"Is that what you put in your vows?"

He grins, looking better for it, and tousles through her loose brown hair. She convinced Sansa to not waste her time styling it since they have a short trek through a pleasant patch of the forest to walk in to get to the proper wedding spot, so she was spared that misery -- at the expense of having to lie to a man of God. Was it a lie if they were already married?

"I have my vows," he says, grinning like he's sixteen again.

She straightens the grey of his jacket, the blue of his tie, and he pecks the red of her lips as she reminds him that she loves him. "We're getting married today."

"I've waited so long for this."

"I know, right? What have we been doing this past year?"

"Finding a flat next to Theon's so we can get high every other Tuesday."

"Oh," he says, snorting with a laugh before he kisses her again.

" _Oh_."

"It's going to rain," Bran calls to them, though the forecast for this week promised nothing but sun.

"Will not!" she huffs, sighing into Gendry's chest since she probably wouldn't be able to kiss him again 'till they were married. Again.

"Will, too," Bran told them, because he was a know-it-all. That was right.

"We need a tarp!" Jon shouted from the stairs, and then it was people, people, everyone bustling about for places, places, take a breath, action!

"I've got the booze!" Theon announces while Sansa yells something about hairspray. Mum's crying while Dad's straightening Willas's tie and telling him how he remembers when it was him wedding one of his daughters, and dear goodness.

"You look really pretty," Shireen tells Arya while she's still hugging Gendry's chest, and that's why they keep her around, she tells her soon-to-be (already) husband. She's just the sweetest and loves Taylor Swift and that Van Halen t-shirt.

"No, you don't," Rickon sneers in that way only eighteen year olds can, and Gendry flips him off.

"We can't drive to the spot," Mum calls over everyone's chatter in the muggy basement, but a loud crackle of thunder tells them the rain won't let up for a while.

So. "We just walk there with this tarp draping over us," Theon says.

And while it's Rickon interning for his dad since he's a genius when it comes to maths and figures and business diplomacy, shockingly, he says he wants what Theon's smoking, anyways.

"We can wait it out?" It's nearly always a question when Gendry says something directed to another Stark, but they do wait for an hour and thirteen minutes.

The family and few friends play charades because they're so posh, and the power goes out only once. It's a good day. An even better wedding.

It's forever, she can feel it, and her eyes are wet from tears instead of the rain that long-stopped falling.

"I love you," and everyone waits to see if she'll say anything else in her vows, but that's all she's feeling, all she's ever felt, and she sees it back in his eyes as he takes her face in his rough hands like he's about to kiss her now.

The minister clears his throat in a manner too chastising to be godly, but it's all so perfect.

Or -- not as perfect as she thought it was, but everything's better that way, isn't it? More real, more them, more an ardent kiss that had her dropping her bouquet as soon as he was told to kiss her.

No one cheered as loudly as Theon (Rickon howled) or cried as loudly as Sansa and Willas's couple months old baby boy, but Arya smacked Gendry's arm when he tried to dip her mid-kiss, chilled wind rustling through wet leaves and petrichor.

"Congratulations!" everyone called at once, but then Rickon just had to forget why secrets were secrets and their dad nearly fell over when the youngest brother said they were married again.

"We're kicking him out," Gendry mumbles, but no. They wouldn't.

They were all family, odd and disagreeable and annoying at times, but they were what each other had. Mum crying into Dad, his eyes not particularly dry. Theon making eyes at Bella since Arya hasn't been bitter about that night since she was first kissed minutes later. Bran not clapping but _applauding_ because he's so prim. Sansa weeping with everyone else, Willas smiling and happy and holding his family closer to him.

But Gendry kisses her again, and Jon shouts.


End file.
